Production of fuel gas



C. G. PETTIT PRODUCTION OF FUEL GAS Sept. 8, wm

2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Nov. 5, 1966 FIG. 1.

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PRODUCTION OF FUEL GAS Filed Nov. 3. 1986 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 0 V /,I (C R PIC-3.2.

Cecil George Pettit mvemoa United States Patent 3,527,586 PRODUCTION OF FUEL GAS Cecil G. Pettit, Smethwick, England, assignor to Wellman Incandescent Furnace Company Limited, a British company Filed Nov. 3, 1966, Ser. No. 591,770 Claims priority, application Great Britain, Nov. 3, 1965, 46,670/65 Int. Cl. C01b 2/14 US. Cl. 48-214 6 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Process and apparatus for the production of fuel gases from a hydrocarbon feed which comprises introducing the hydrocarbon feedstock and steam into a loop reactor such that the mean number of circulations of the material fed to the reactor is in the range of from about 1 to about 6. The parameters of the reactor, e.g. loop length and cross-section, injection velocities, are such that the mean residence time of the material fed to the reactor is at least about 0.5 second. The reaction temperatures employed to effect the chemical conversion of the feedstock to a fuel gas are in the range of up to about 900 C.

This invention relates to the production of fuel gas, and for purposes of this specification, fuel gas is intended to include town gas, producer gas, water gas, cracked oil gases and like lean, normal or rich gases capable of combustion.

It is known that fuel gas may be produced by thermal conversion of a hydrocarbon stock, for example a hydrocarbon distillate, in the presence of steam, and an object of the present invention is to provide an eflicient and versatile process and apparatus which is economical to run and also which is capable of operating with a wide variety of hydrocarbon feed stocks.

In accordance with one aspect of the invention there is provided a process for the production of fuel gases from a hydrocarbon feed which comprises introducing a hydrocarbon feedstock and steam into a loop reactor under conditions such that at least a portion of the material fed to the reactor is circulated more than once, the loop reactor being at a temperature such as to effect chemical conversion of the feedstock to a fuel gas, and extracting products from said reactor.

Preferably the various parameters such as loop length and cross-section, injection velocities, pressures and outlet size and disposition are arranged so that the mean residence time is at least about 0.5 second. The concept of mean residence time is necessary in this reactor as a part of the reactor mixture is being recirculated for considerably longer while a part may be resistent for less than 0.5 second. Preferred mean residence times are of the order of 1 or 1.1 seconds.

In accordance with a further aspect of this invention a reactor for gasification processes comprises at least one closed loop having an inlet for reactor feed to be gasified, an outlet for gasified products and means for applying heat externally to the said reactor.

The words loop vessel are used herein to include vesice sels of various configurations in which a continuous lo0plike path is provided for the reactants. For example, the loop vessel may be purely toroidal, or merely approximately toroidal consisting of parallel straight tube portions each interconnected at each end by semi-circular extending portion. Alternatively the loop may consist of a series of straight tube portions angularly related to make up a polygonal loop, or of a somewhat cylindrical vessel housing a centrally located axially extending liner so that the liner forms one leg of the loop and the surrounding annular space forms the remaining part of the loop. In a further alternative the reactor comprises two loops having a common arm into which the feed is introduced, the reaction mixture being split into two streams at the end of said common arm.

In general the loop vessel may be located in any plane or inclination unless the feed stock is one apt to produce ash as a byproduct and in such case the loop is preferably located with the tube axis in a vertical or inclined plane and with an ash sump at the lowest position. It is generally most convenient to suspend the loop vessel vertically.

The reaction taking place in the vessel will depend upon the nature of the feed and to some extent the reaction conditions. Normally the reactions will be endothermic and the heat input may be achieved both by pre-heating the steam and/ or the hydrocarbon feed stock either before or after mixing. The reactor is preferably located in a furnace to provide an additional supply of heat. Furnace temperatures of up to 1200 C. are generally satisfactory, this being sufficient, with pre-heating of the feed, to achieve a reaction temperature of up to about 900 C. The actual reaction temperature will normally be from about 625 C. to about 900 C. depending upon the feedstock employed and the desired products.

If desired catalysts may be employed but in general it is preferred to carry out non-catalysed reactions as they are more economical particularly when contaminated feedstocks are employed which may lead to poisoning of the catalyst.

It is desirable that the inlet and outlet should be located in proximity to one another; this may be achieved by the use of closely parallel inlet and outlet tubes or an annular outlet may surround the inlet.

The mean residence time of the feedstock in the reaction vessel should be more than 0.5 second in order to ensure the establishment of complete equilibrium between feed and products. It is however difficult or impracticable to produce residence times in excess of about 1.1 seconds without using either extremely high pressures, of the order of 10 atmospheres or using very high inlet velocities such as hypersonic velocities.

Residence times of the order of 0.65 second are satisfactory and 0.8 to 1.1 seconds is the preferred range. Preferred temperatures are those in the range 625 C. to 750 C. for non-cracking reactions and in the range 750 C. to 900 C. for cracking reactions.

Maximum turbulence in the reactants is desirable for its effect on reducing certain disproportion and ensuring thorough mixing and hence rapid reaction of hydrocarbon molecules. The reduction of sooting may be due to the reduction (statistically) of probability of any fresh feed molecule remaining in contact with the vessel wall for more than a brief instant of time, so that degradation via heat absorption is unlikely.

The number of circulations in the loop reactor, which must be considered in terms of mean number of circulations for the same reason as that for residence time, is

4 Referring to FIG. 2 the reactor inlet 12 is connected to a pre-heater 21 which includes a coil 22 for pre-heating steam and a coil 23 for pre-heating a hydrocarbon feedstock introduced by conduit 24. A by-pass 25 is provided to enable feedstock which has not been pro-heated to be preferably as high as possible. It is possible to produce introduced into the reactor 11. The steam is raised in a mean number of 6 circulations by using very high iuaboiler 20. jection velocities but for many purposes 1 to 4 is suffi- The outlet is connected to a waste heat boiler 26 which cient. may be used to raise process steam, a tar separator 27 The quantity of steam utilized is preferably in the range and a water condenser 28, the water being returned to of 0.8-2 to 1 part of hydrocarbon feed on the Weight the boiler 20. Product gas leaves the condenser 28. basis. Materials other than the particular hydrocarbon The process of the invention is illustrated in the folfeedstock being used and steam may be incorporated in lowing examples. the feed, for example air or methane, however the intro- EXAMPLES duction of air necessarily involves ballasting the produced The reactor described above was used for carrying f Wlth mtrogen, and whll'st thls y be tolerable It has out the reactions described in the following Table 1, the slde efieQts the ledllctlofl 0f flame travel fate- The feedstock being gas-oil fed to the reactor at ambient temintroduction of m t Will only be found economic perature. In the runs shown carbon was detected in the under exceptional circumstances. resulting tar only in Examples 7 to 10.

TABLE 1 Example N 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Furnace temperature C.) 050 960 1, 000 1, 000 970 1, 060 1, 070 1, 140 1,130 1, 200 Steam temperature C.) 820 795 800 800 715 825 790 810 805 830 Product temperature 0.)..- 635 638 650 670 640 700 655 750 835 845 Oil feed (lb./hr.) 147 105 75. 7 07 97 39 150 101 50 48 Steam feed (lb./hr.) 100 100 95 95 102 101 150 98 58 57 04- gas analysis:

Hz percent by vol 2. 6 3. 5 3. 2 27. 1 14. 3 12. 4 00 0.1 01 0.2 0.4 0.0 1.7 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.1 1.3 25. 0 27. 2 22. 4 2s. 5 20. 2 31.8 43. 3 47. 7 41. 0 20. 0 30. 0 30. 7 3.2 2.3 0.0 0.5 3.3 2.0 14.8 7.3 10.0 2.4 14.0 0.0 0.8 0.9 H 10.3 11.8 8.2 0.5 10.4 3.3 G4H10 0.5

Whilst the foregoing has referred to loop vessels and EXAMPLE 11 speclficauy mentloned elxamlples all d i i Using a reactor as above described the proportions of smgle 9 more q ex Pamcu i Para 6 reactants introduced by weight were 1 part of oil to 2 are posilble to Provide P f capaclty or to offer parts of steam, and the reactants were pre-heated to 8. alternative g i f as f li tern temperature of the order of 300 C. prior to injection peratures an .possl y cata ys S an e 1 or elm-nat high velocity into the reactor. At a reactor wall tem- Proportion of reactants may be bledpfi clrcu' perature of 950 C., and with a residence time of 1.05 lateg throufh a i f i artld Introduced seconds the calorific value of the produced gas formed was g t Zesse zi i t f ttrea f g g around 500 B.t.u.s per standard cubic foot but there was acl} a e a y ac Ion ca a ys .agenera Ion 1 20% residue of which was carbon and the remainder out interfering with the continuous running of the reactor oily vessel.

. 2 Any hydrocarbon feedstock may be used but it is pre- EXAMPLE 1 ferred to use a distillate which preferably, but not neces- Steam/oil ratio 25:1 pre-heated to 330 C. and reacted sarily, boils in the range of 100- 00 C. Examples of at wall temperature of 830 C. with 0.92 second resihydrocarbon feedstocks which may be used are naturally de e time, The CV under these conditions was 1000 occurring gases and petroleum refining gases, distillate B.t.u./cu. ft. and the gas contained 7% residue made up fractions such as gas oil, kerosene and light virgin naphequally of oil and carbon. tha, lubricating oil or distillate fractions, steam-cracker tar and possibly heavy-ends resulting from various EXAMPLE 13 petrochemical processes as well as light fuel oils and oth- Steam/oil ratio 1:1 pre-heated to 280 C. with same reer oils containing small quantities of residual fuels and actor temperature as Example 2 but residence time of 0.65 heavy fuel oils. second. The gas contained only 2% residue and had a A preferred apparatus in accordance with the present CV of 1200 B.t.u./cu. ft. invention is hereinafter particularly described with ref- What is claimed is: erence to the accompanying drawings in which: 1. A process for producing olefinic materials from liq- FIG. 1 is a cross section through a reactor; and uid and gaseous hydrocarbon feedstocks which comprises FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a gasification plant introducing said hydrocarbon feedstock and steam into a incorporating a reactor as shown in FIG. 1. loop reactor, the weight ratio of steam to hydrocarbon The reactor comprises a generally toroidal tube 11 havfeedstock being from about 0.8:1 to 2:1, circulating said ing parallel elongated straight side portions, and is conhydrocarbon feedstock and steam within said loop reactor, structed from stainless steel tube of internal diameter the mean number of circulations of said hydrocarbon 4.625 inches and outside diameter 5.25 inches. The inlet feedstock and steam varying from 1 to about 6, said proc- 12 and outlet 13 are of similar material and extend paraless conducted at a temperature in the range of from about lel to one another. A bleed pipe 14 is provided at the 625 to 750 C. with a mean residence time in excess of other end of the reactor this being useful for taking 0.5 second and thereafter recovering said olefim'c matesamples of the reaction mixture and also serving a merials. chanical function in that it assists in supporting the free 2. The process of claim 1 wherein said hydrocarbon end of the reactor. The reactor is mounted within a furfeedstock is selected from the group consisting of hynace 15. drocarbon gases, kerosene, virgin naphtha, hydrocarbon 6 distillates boiling in the range of from about 100 to 400 References Cited fi fuel? 1 1 h h d b UNITED STATES PATENTS n fi f gfjff calm W elem Sal y Mar 0 1,963,167 6/1934 Heller 48214 XR 4. The process of claim 2 wherein the mean residence 2 12 21 fiififi "232 3; time of hydrocarbon feedstock and steam within the said 5 13 g ig z ;i X

reactor varies in the range of from about 0.5 to 1.1 seconds.

5. The process of claim 1 wherein said hydrocarbon MORRIS O'WOLKPnmary Exammer feedstock is a hydrocarbon distillate boiling in the range R. E. SERWIN, Assistant Examiner of from about 100 to about 400 C. 10

6. The process of claim 1 wherein the hydrocarbon feedstock is a gas oil and ethylene is recovered as the predominant olefinic material. 

